


Dancing in the Rain

by dottieapple



Series: Dottie's Happy Steve Bingo entries 2018 [1]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 02:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16031285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottieapple/pseuds/dottieapple
Summary: An uncreative title for my first Happy Steve Bingo 2018 fill!Rain always brings romance and longing, right? It's no different for Steve Rogers (the teenager AND Captain America) and James "Bucky" Barnes (the teenager AND the semi-stable 100 year old former Winter Soldier).





	Dancing in the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Wild Card Fill #1: Dancing in the rain

**1933**   
  
Late August in Brooklyn had to be Steve’s second least favorite time of year. It was no winter cold snap--temporary relief from the heat was a bit easier to find. That being said, there was only so much the one fan he and Bucky owned could do in terms of cooling him down. There was only one window to the apartment, which led out onto the fire escape, and while the air outside was sometimes less still, it didn’t offer much comfort on humid nights that were too thick for Steve’s lungs. The closeness of the buildings in the neighborhood kept all the heat trapped until a summer wind kicked up.

Steve lived for strong thunderstorms. The wind would kick up from the ocean, and while the air was still damp, something cooler was riding on it. When they were kids, he and Bucky would run outside barefoot in the downpours, tilting their heads back and letting raindrops splash on their faces and tongues. Sarah (and Bucky, for that matter) had been hesitant to let Steve splash in puddles during the spring or the fall. “Too easy to catch a chill,” Sarah would say, giving Steve that look that he shrugged off to stay indoors on her advice. 

Steve hated having to stay indoors when Bucky would go out with the other kids in those days. He never spoke up, but he would bury himself in drawing or reading, his preferred indoor activities. It was the most he could do to keep his mind off his weak lungs or his racing heart, but he was going to survive, dammit. He knew life’s odds were stacked against him. Steve was always ready to charge at life, squared at the jaw with teeth gritted. A little rainstorm wasn’t going to be the death of Steve Rogers. (And then in the back of his mind, Bucky’s voice:  _ “It ain’t the weather, punk. It’s the pneumonia you’re gonna catch, now put your damn coat on.” _ )

Steve noticed the sky darkening outside the window. He inhaled, and the scent of an incoming storm filled his nostrils. The sweat beading up at his neck ran down into the small of his back. A roll of thunder crossed the city, a small flash of lightning split the sky. 

Steve mopped his brow, keeping his gaze out the window. He stole a glance at the clock. Quarter past five, maybe Bucky would be home soon. A cool breeze blew across Steve’s shoulders.

“Fuck it,” Steve said to the empty apartment. He hopped to his feet and slipped out of his suspenders. His trousers dropped in a pool on the floor, and he stepped out of them. He wobbled around from foot to foot, pulling off his socks. When Steve had stripped down to his shorts and an undershirt, he lifted the window open and carefully crawled onto the fire escape. He inhaled the fresh moving air. He watched the flashes of electricity light the clouds. 

Then it began to rain. The drops were small, tickling his arms and his shoulders. Steve giggled despite himself at the way the water felt running down through his hair onto his scalp. He sat at the railing and kicked his feet out. He could feel that a heavy downpour was inevitable. Steve relished the cool drops and the wind evaporating them from his skin.

Suddenly, a voice. “There you are, punk.” Bucky’s face poked out of the open window. “I know it ain’t the weather that gets ya sick, but I’m pretty sure you’re the only idiot I know who wants to sit on a metal slab outside a building in an electrical storm.” 

Steve only shook his head. “It’s hotter’n hell in there, Buck. You want me to pass out from the heat? I’m lookin’ out for myself since you ain’t here all afternoon.” 

“Sick idiot, electrocuted idiot, what’s the difference? Gonna be the death of me one of these days, Stevie.” Bucky mumbled, mostly to himself, from inside the apartment. He popped up at the window again, shirtless this time. Steve watched Bucky awkwardly wiggling around, and then Bucky stepped out of the window frame in nothing but his own shorts.

Steve smiled his best shit-eating grin. “Was I right? Too hot for ya? Gonna come out here and enjoy this with me?”

“Maybe. Just wanna make sure if your goose gets cooked out here you won’t go down alone in your skivvies.” He crawled out the window, quick and graceful, plopping down next to Steve. He kicked his own feet out next to Steve’s, bumping Steve’s ankle with his toes.

“Jesus, Buck, you need to use your toes as weapons? When’s the last time you trimmed your nails?” Steve still enjoyed the contact a little, even if it might leave a mark.

Bucky didn’t respond but turned his face upward into the downpour, which was increasing in intensity. Steve’s white undershirt was soaked through, leaving no detail of his meager chest to the imagination. Maybe he was imagining it, but he thought he saw Bucky steal a glance. 

Steve was trying to ignore Bucky’s chosen outfit of shorts and reckless confidence, but his teenage heart skipped an extra beat when he saw how perfectly little rivulets of water ran down from his best pal’s shoulders over his chest and his biceps. Thank God Bucky was still stone-sober, a few drinks and he’d’ve been likely to crawl outside in his birthday suit. 

Bucky shook the rain off his hair like a dog. “Y’know, Stevie? This was actually a good idea.” He clapped his arm around Steve’s shoulders with a wet smack. “Real refreshing.” There was lightning and thunder again, and neither boy flinched.

 

*****

 

**Labor Day weekend, 2016**   
  
The terrace on the 23rd floor of Stark Tower was a gorgeous spot for a picnic. The terrace, however, did not have a roof. Sam set out a giant bowl of his mother’s famous potato salad on a cloth-covered table set up inside the Terrace Ballroom and looked out the row of sliding glass doors. “Stark, you’re a tech genius billionaire with a practically unlimited budget, and you didn’t install a collapsible roof for your own damn tower deck?”

Tony was turning back and forth between two robots, one bearing a tray of corn on the cob and the other holding a fruit platter. “Awnings are tacky, Birdman. This is Manhattan, not some grandma’s house in Queens.” The roll of Sam’s eyes was so exaggerated, it was a wonder that Tony couldn’t hear it. “There’s a pizza shop about 3 blocks away with a yellow and white striped awning that’s just perfect for one sad little man to eat by himself in the rain, if awnings are so important to you.” 

“I will take this potato salad and go home,” Sam taunted loudly.

“The salad stays,” Clint called out as he entered the ballroom, a massive foil pan in his arms. “We gotta have something to go with these burgers. Where’s Cap? He’s supposed to bring the beer.” 

Natasha followed quickly on Clint’s heels, hauling two other covered foil pans that were steaming. “He was here,” she commented. “There’s five cases of beer in the walk-in fridge that weren’t there an hour ago when I put the desserts in to chill.” She looked toward the row of sliding glass doors onto the rainy terrace. The rain was falling with such an intensity that it looked foggy outside. She stopped in her tracks and let out something that was almost a laugh. “Oh. Missing subject located.” 

Nat tilted her head toward the far corner of the rain-soaked terrace outside, just past the planters of bright pink and purple flowers. Tony’s eyes widened. Clint smirked. Sam snorted, “Oh, go on Cap! Get some!” Steve had Bucky cornered, and the two supersoldiers’ shirts clung extra tightly to their torsos in the downpour. 

“If there’s an impromptu wet t-shirt contest, I demand that Thor show up right now,” Tony snarked. “JARVIS! Get me an ETA on the god o’ thunder and pecs. I better go change and get a towel if I want to give anybody any competition. Don’t let the gun show start without me.” 

“Right away, sir,” JARVIS replied. “You have a stash of suitable shirts and towels in the lab. I shall locate Thor and send you the coordinates.”

“We could use the help in here if we wanna get this party going. Lemme go talk to them.” Clint was lumbering toward the door until Natasha grabbed his arm, halting him in his tracks.

“Seriously, Barton? Let the boys have their fun. It’s an all-American holiday. We’re not on call, and if there’s an emergency, we all have to go anyway.” She gestured for him to back away from the doors as well as the amorous display outside.    
  
“I suppose you’re right,” Clint sighed, settling his body for boredom to come.   
  
“Oh, come on. Quit moping. Bruce and Rhodey aren’t even here yet, it’s not like the party’s started.” Natasha then smirked and raised her voice to be heard throughout the ballroom. “Also: I’ll give you twenty bucks if you can shotgun a beer faster than Wilson.”

“Oh, it is ON!!” Sam called over his shoulder, already making a sprint for the fridge. “That money is mine, Robin Hood!” Clint dashed after him. Natasha casually set off behind them.

Outside on the terrace, the rain soaked Steve and Bucky to the bone, but neither of them cared. Bucky smiled and slicked his drenched hair back on his head. Steve couldn’t stop smiling from the raindrops tickling his scalp. “Why did we come out here again, Buck?”

Bucky didn’t reply. He couldn’t explain the nostalgia for something he didn’t remember doing exactly. He’d been sharply struck by the weather, thinking,  _ days like this you went outside, before, _ and conjured a fuzzy picture of a much smaller Steve, smiling with drops of water on his nose, and a general feeling of wanting to see more. Maybe to touch? Bucky allowed his fuzzy recollections to determine his next move, and he slipped one hand around Steve’s waist. Despite his relative size, it still felt small and taut under Bucky’s hands, warm like a good memory. _  Was this right?  _ “Did we ever dance in the rain, Steve?”

Steve smiled brightly with something sad at the edges of his eyes. “Don’t think so,” he responded. “You know I never was much of a dancer, especially back then. Plus that sounds pretty romantic, and you know what I would’ve had to say about that.” Steve looked around to see if anyone else had decided to brave the outdoor terrace with the torrential downpour and occasional dull rumble of thunder.

He placed one hand up on Bucky’s shoulder and took his metal hand gently into his own. They looked at each other shyly, the hint of a flush riding high on Steve’s cheeks, and he began to hum. Steve smiled fondly and began to move back and forth, mostly from above the waist to avoid trampling on his best guy's toes.

Bucky let out a small, amused snort. “ _ Singin’ in the Rain _ ? Protest about romance all you want; it’s bullshit. You _are_ , and always have been, a sap.” 

“You watched it with me and didn’t complain once, jerk. Think that makes you an equal sap now.” They’d streamed it on date night, one of the evenings spent catching up on recommended classics, side by side on the couch. Steve pulled Bucky closer and swallowed a giggle. “Besides, pal, if we’re gonna be modern fellas, I’ve been told it’s good to own up to being sappy. Something about subverting the culture of toxic masculinity.”

Bucky chortled, then nuzzled his face against Steve’s neck. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, punk. Sounds like some fancy talk for my therapist.” Steve went back to humming softly, swaying. Dancing with Bucky, barely lifting his feet from the ground, as was always his anxious little way, even when they were young. 

Bucky focused on a rivulet of water trailing down toward Steve’s collar. Without a second thought, he pressed his lips to Steve’s skin to catch it before it could trickle away to his collarbone.

Steve cupped Bucky’s jaw with a strong hand and tilted his face up, catching him in a deep, slow kiss.  _ This,  _ Bucky thought,  _ this is what was supposed to happen,  _ and it felt brand new but as old as love itself. Rain still poured all around them, and they drank each other in, the late-summer heat of Manhattan only adding to their own.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Look for more Happy Steve Bingo fills from me, and remember, comments, kudos, shares and loooove are my bread and butter!
> 
> xo,  
> Dot


End file.
